Buckle up, Boston Celtics fans. The offseason rumors are already beginning to swirl and the regular season hasn’t even wrapped up yet. We all have the long, drawn-out divorce between Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks to thank for that.
Now that it seems the court documents for said divorce are being metaphorically finalized, the next question becomes, “Where does Giannis play next?”
Somehow, the Celtics have found their way into that conversation. The Athletic’s Sam Amick listed Boston as a team that is “known to be interested” in the 31-year-old star.
“Even the Celtics, who have the ‘Two Jays’ back now and look fully capable of winning it all, are known to be interested and discussed in league circles as potential suitors,” Amick wrote on Wednesday morning.
Amick's report comes days after Antetokounmpo publicly praised the culture Joe Mazzulla has created in Boston.
“Like, you saw I talked with coach Joe Mazzulla,” Antetokounmpo told Lori Nickel of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “I said, ‘You had so many opportunities to make excuses, but you didn’t.’ And he said, ‘Oh, they’re good players.’ I said, no. It’s about the mentality that you instilled in your place.”
What does a Giannis trade look like for Boston?
In theory, adding a 10-time All-Star into the fold sounds like a no-brainer for the Celtics. They’ve crossed paths with the Greek Freak many times and are fully aware of the type of impact he can have on winning.
The reality boils down to the actual how a trade would have to work. Most likely, any deal that would land Antetokounmpo in Boston would have to include either Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, whose salaries are the same, and just below Giannis’s, respectively.
That doesn’t seem like it’d be something the Celtics front office would be interested in doing at this point. They’ve currently got a 54+ win team on their hands, and 64 of their 79 games to this point have come without Tatum. Why shake it up now?
There is, however, an avenue to get a deal done without including either man. A hypothetical trade which would send Derrick White, Sam Hauser, and Payton Pritchard (plus probably every draft pick possible) to Milwaukee, technically meets the financial rules necessary to pass league standards.
Whether or not either side would do it is unclear. The Bucks may feel they can get more elsewhere for the best player they’ve had in 50+ years, and the Celtics may value their depth and draft assets over the chance at Giannis.
Adding the 2021 NBA Finals MVP would give Boston three supermax players. Their respective contracts alone (a combined $174 million) would eclipse the $165 million projected salary cap for next season.
This doesn't seem like the time for the Celtics to take a swing
Building out a roster around those three would be a tall task to ask of the front office. The caveat would be whatever confidence the Cs have in the players not included in that deal. Losing three of their top seven rotation players would be tough, but if they believe in Baylor Scheierman, Hugo Gonzalez, Jordan Walsh, Ron Harper Jr., and Max Shulga (they need someone to try and fill Pritchard’s role a little bit), then it could make sense for them.
Personally, it doesn’t add up for me. Giannis has struggled to stay healthy this season (though the Bucks seem to be holding him out at this point). He’s missed 43 games, which will likely finish at 46 absences, as he’s battled a handful of injuries. Not to mention that Antetokounmpo has been injured in two of Milwaukee’s last three playoff appearances.
His rough, physical style of play doesn’t exactly bode well for longevity. Plus, Giannis doesn’t have a reliable jumper to fall back on when he physically declines with age. Who knows how many great years he’s got left?
It would be one thing if the Celtics were in a desperate spot and needed to take a risk. That’s just not the case. They’re set up for sustainable success, it doesn’t make sense to mess with it at this point.
Ironically, if Boston were to make a move for Giannis, they'd be coughing up part of what's enable Mazzulla to cultivate his culture -- his players.
“Obviously, he’s a great player,” Mazzulla said when asked about Antetokounmpo’s comments. “But I think my reaction was, like, ‘You can’t do anything unless you have the players to be able to do that.’ And I think that may sound — I say it a lot, but it’s just that simple. I think the greatest gift you can have as a coach, especially in the NBA, is to have a group of players that have a high competitive character, care about winning and want to get better. I think it starts there. And so that kind of was my response to that.”